


simon has 99 problems and two co-workers. those categories are unrelated.

by blumenkohl



Category: Time Bombs (Podcast)
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Just Boys Being Homies, Mention of Death, Oatmeal Man, Sleepy Cuddles, Time:Bombs Tuesday, Unresolved Emotional Tension, everyone's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blumenkohl/pseuds/blumenkohl
Summary: Midland bonds with Radio Bob. Simon is not having a good time. Bob's lipstick is strawberry flavoured.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42





	simon has 99 problems and two co-workers. those categories are unrelated.

When Midland left the locker room at the end of his shift, he was stopped dead in his tracks. And his CO stared back blankly. “Boss, you look like hell.”  
Teller sneered, but for once there was no real energy behind it. His face looked strangely bloodless all of a sudden. He had been a little bit off all day, but in the lighting of their van, it hadn’t been this obvious. “You’re not exactly Tom Hardy yourself.”  
“I just meant- Tom Hardy, really? Is that what you’re going with? You’re sick.”  
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I forget to congratulate you on graduating med school?”  
Midland rolled his eyes. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be irritated by Tellers snark anymore. It was just part of his questionable charme. “Exactly, you get crabby when you’re sick. You’re proving my point. Go home, Boss.”  
“... Fine. But only because you won’t let it go.”  
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.”  
Midland walked past him shaking his head. He returned to the lot and opened the van's sliding door to do one last round of checks. They were going to be off for a couple of days, and if someone had stashed snacks in the glove apartment again… Again, he stopped.  
He had assumed Radio Bob to be gone already, but he was still in there in his seat, his back halfway turned, staring at his phone. When he heard the door he looked up startled and then quickly turned away again, wiping at his cheeks. “Think you can give me a minute?”  
“Are you alright?” He felt like an idiot asking that, but he really wasn't sure what else to do, he hadn’t known Bob to be upset before, and now he was… was he crying?  
“Sure thing.” Bob sounded like he agreed that, yes, it was indeed a dumb thing to ask and he should be ashamed of himself.  
“What’s going on?”  
“I said I need a minute, for once can you just fucking-” Bob caught himself before he could pick up steam, but Midland still felt like someone had hit him over the head with something heavy. Seeing the man snap like that felt drastic. Now Bob was looking at him and his make up didn’t seem to have suffered, but his cheeks weren’t completely dry. Midland had no idea how to interpret his facial expression, but his voice had returned to normal, although sedate. “Sorry, man. It’s just not a good time right now. You should just head out.”  
Midlands instinct pushed him to find out what the hell could have happened to rattle Bob like that, but he held back.  
“Okay, yeah. Just.. take your time.” He closed the door between them and stared at it for a long minute, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened with the limited information he had. He only really came to one conclusion.

When Bob left the Van and saw Midland outside, he paused. He really seemed to have managed to get his composure back, but the smirk he gave him still seemed a lot less enthusiastic than usual. “What are you still doing here, man?”  
Midland buried his hands in his coat pockets and smirked back, although he wasn’t sure he was being any more convincing. “Waiting for you. I’m taking you out.”  
At the very least that got a raspy little laugh from Bob. He seemed… drained, somehow, as though he had sprung a leak and was losing Radio Bob. No wait, that was ridiculous. He had been spending too much time around Simon and it was starting to show, sometimes he almost thought he heard his voice in his head.  
“Today doesn’t really work for me.”  
“Really, why?”  
The answer took a long time, and Midland could see Bob grow more desperate, until, with obvious dismay, he squeezed out: “Love Boat is on.”  
“No, it’s not, not until friday night. Come on, it’s my treat.”  
For a moment someone in Bob's face shifted around, and Midland halfway expected he would snap at him away, but then he simmered down quickly and just followed. They left the lot and stayed silent for a while, before Bob said, softly now: “How do you know when The Love Boat is on?”  
“No comment.”

It was still early in the night when they arrived at the bar and it was mostly empty. Bob should have looked out of place in the rustic environment, but he fit in as comfortably as anywhere. Still, he was obviously chewing on something. When Midland came back to the table with a full two rounds of shots, Bob's long nails were picking apart a paper coaster. Some life returned to him when he looked up, but at this point it was clearly performative. They both knew, so it didn’t matter. “Midland. You’re not trying to get me drunk, are you?”  
“That is exactly what I’m doing.”  
“And why would you do that?”  
Midland shrugged vaguely and made a noncommittal gesture. “You look like you need it.”  
There was a moment of silence while Bob stared at the glasses in front of him. As tense as he was, Midland halfway expected him to get up and leave. Then he took his first shot and leaned back into his chair, despite looking deeply displeased with the situation. “Damn right, I do.”

They drank in silence for a while, and secretly Midland was beginning to worry if he had miscalculated. There was no point in this if he blacked out before Bob felt ready to open up. … on the other hand, maybe that was not so bad. Even if they didn’t end up talking, he was convinced this had to be better than letting him go home alone to his… Huh.  
“Now what’s that face. Are you about to back out?” Bob had begun to sound so much like himself again, that Midland almost felt ridiculous for the whole thing. But he knew what he’d seen.  
“I just realised that I don’t actually know a whole lot about you.”  
Bob shrugged. “You never asked. What d’you wanna know?”  
Midland thought about it, it didn’t help that he was already feeling pretty foggy. “You’re single, right? I mean- stop grinning, I mean you live alone, right?”  
“Jup.” Still grinning, Bob rested his chin on his hand and looked up at Midland in a way that made a nervous giggle rise up in his chest. Oh dear. He took a quick swig of beer. He really needed to get this under control.  
Bob was still looking at him, gazing up through those crazy lashes. Was this him trying to derail the conversation? If so, he was doing a pretty good job. Midland leaned in a little, like he was trying to hear him better. “You don’t actually watch the love boat, do you?”  
“Why not? You don’t think I’m the type?”  
“You’re not fifty.”  
“Then how old am I?”  
Midland opened his mouth, stared at him and closed it again. Huh. How could he possibly not know this? He’d thought Teller was protective of his private life, but this was just ridiculous. And he had never even realised. “Alright, stranger. I get your point. So, I don’t know. What about your family?”  
That had been a mistake. He could see Bob shutting down right before his eyes, without his smile ever wavering. It made him wonder how many times they had pissed him off without even noticing. “What about my family?”  
“Tell me about them. Do you have any siblings?”  
“... yeah.” After a moment, Bob gracefully gave in to Midlands stare and held up two fingers.  
“Brothers? Sister?”  
“Uh-huh. Those.” Oh, this was ridiculous.  
“What about your parents?”  
There was a pause, then Bob pointedly slid his glass across the table. “You’re gonna have to spring for a proper drink.”  
That seemed like progress, although Midland had to wonder if that was just a trap to keep him busy. … or maybe he just spent too much time around Teller, if he was that suspicious.

Still, when he came back, he was almost surprised to still see Bob sitting there. Granted, he looked like he would rather be anywhere else. His look had a strangely cautious quality to it now, like he expected to be graded on their next interaction.  
“So”, Midland said slowly as he set down. Even though he did his best to seem relaxed, Bob didn’t exactly meet his eyes, which was new.  
“Why do you need to know so much about my life all of a sudden, man?”  
“You don’t have to tell me.”  
“Good.”  
“... But we are spending a lot of time together. And if I really wanted to know, I could just ask Teller.”  
“You think he’d tattle?”  
“Probably no. I think he’s been avoiding me, actually.” Midland took a quick drink, but he looked up quickly enough to see Bob struggling to hide his smirk.  
“What? Do you know something about that? I knew I wasn’t imagining it.”  
With a shrug, Bob raised both of his hands. “It’s not really any of my business, man. Maybe you should talk to him about it.”  
“Oh, you know he isn’t going to give me a straight answer.”  
Bob choked on his drink and coughed weakly. “No, probably not.”  
Alright, this was starting to get annoying. For a moment, Midland watched the ice cubes clink in his class, then he set it down and leaned closer to Bob again. “About you, though-”  
Bob's face shut down so fast that he already felt bad asking before he got cut off. “My mother passed away, I got the phone call earlier.” It was impossible to take anything from his tone other than mild irritation. Oh. Oh no.  
Midland just stared for a moment, his brain felt muddy and entirely unprepared for this. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it. “I’m- so sorry.”  
Bob waved him off, but again, wasn’t exactly meeting his eyes. “Nah. This is why I wasn’t going to tell you. We weren’t close. It just… brought up a lot of stuff, you know.”  
“I… guess. What happened?”  
All he got was a shrug. “Beats me. My brother only called me to tell me not to come to the funeral. Like I was gonna do that in the first place.”  
“That’s- that’s messed up.”  
“Eh. I can think of better ways to spend my saturday.”  
Wow. The booze did not help him process that at all. No wonder he had never heard about Bob's family, or his private life in general for that matter. It was kind of hard to imagine him getting in such bad standing with his family. Now Teller… with Teller he got why he didn’t have a lot of contact with his family. But this now? This was just a lot. He was starting to understand the EODs reputation.  
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s really not a big deal.”  
“I shouldn’t have pushed.”  
“... It’s fine, I suppose. It’s not really a secret, just kind of brings down the mood.”  
That sounded about right.  
“Well, what happened? With your family?”  
“You’re still not done asking questions?”  
“You don’t have to tell me, I just don’t understand- wait, is it because you’re gay?”  
Bob raised his eyebrows and looked around the bar room that had finally begun to fill up with patrons, as though he was looking for an exit. He huffed a dry laugh. “That certainly didn’t help, I can tell you that much. But no there’s… a lot of things happened, alright, and I wasn’t always the upstanding, charming citizen you see before you.”  
Midland hesitated. “Must have been hard.”  
Bob swayed his head vaguely and emptied his drink. “Must have been.” He tapped a sharp nail on the table. “If you want me to cry on your shoulder, we’re gonna need another round.”

Getting home early wasn’t the treat it was made out to be. When Teller opened the door to his apartment he was already sniffling weakly. He just hated when Midland was right.  
He dropped his jacket over the kitchen chair, turned up all the heaters and went to bed.  
When he got up, his head felt like it was just about ready to explode. He stared at the ceiling for a while and mused about ordering a pizza, but eventually he gave up on the idea, because the thought made him nauseated. It was pitch black outside.  
Eventually he got himself out of bed, still wrapped in his blanket - he checked the radiator but it seemed to be working - and looked through his empty kitchen cabinets.  
Wow. That was about as disappointing as he could have guessed. He checked the fridge, took out a milk carton and took a taste. Nothing. That was probably a good sign.  
Oh for god’s sake. He wasn’t that sick.  
Deep in thought about the inherent injustice of his ailing immune system, Teller poured a bunch of oats and some of the vaguely suspicious milk into his only saucepan and turned up the heat.  
He didn’t have to pick up any shifts in the next couple of days anyways, so perhaps this was the best time to get sick. He’d be fine by then. No one even had to know.  
He stood there for a few minutes, wrapped in his blanket and zoned out, blankly stirring his pot. Then his phone rang. He picked up automatically, without even fully registering it.  
It was Radio Bob, although it didn’t immediately sound like him. “Boss, we have a live one.” There was some shuffling and laughter, the thud of something hitting the floor, then more laughter. Then Bob was back on the phone. “We’re gonna need you to give us a lift.” He sounded breathless, like he was still on the verge of cracking up.  
“Are you drunk?”  
“Are you? You sound like sh- oh, no, no- Midland!”  
“Is Midland there with you? What’s going on over there?”  
“We really need a pick up, Simon- now stop pulling, alright-” That was definitely Midlands voice in the background. What the hell were those two doing?  
“Fine, Bob. Bob?”  
He turned the heat down on the stove and sighed. “Just tell me where you are… I’ll be right there.”

He pulled up next to the two of them at the sidewalk, and already regretted picking up the phone. They were talking incessantly. His head felt like it was going to burst.  
When they opened the door, a burst of cold wind got into the car and he automatically turned the radiator higher.  
“What the hell happened to the two of you?”  
“We were just having a night out, Boss”, Bob said and, very dutifully, put on his seatbelt. He barely did that when he was sober.  
Teller raised his brows and started driving. “Couldn’t you just take a cab then?”  
“Sure, sure. Except Midland wanted to see you.”  
Bob laughed when Midland gave him a half-hearted shove and didn’t actually sound so different from his sober self. “I did not want to see him.” And then, directed at Teller, as seriously as he could muster with his slightly slurred speech, Midland added: “I wanted to hear your voice. That is totally different. I was making a point.”  
“... What was the point?”  
At first he thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, then Midland shifted and his face was suddenly very close to him, he propped his chin up on the front seat. “You tell me.”  
Before Teller could respond to that completely nonsensical answer, he had noticed something else in the mirror, when Midlands coat fell away.  
“Midland. Midland, are you wearing- Did you borrow Bob’s shirt?”  
“Mh?” Midland looked at himself and then dropped back into his seat, which was a relief for several reasons. “Oh yeah. Spilled ice cream on mine and he was layering.”  
Bob's jacket was still buttoned up, but he moved his collar enough for Simon to see something that looked like mostly lace. He looked back at Midlands crop top for a second and then forced his eyes back on the street. “Where did you get ice cream, in the middle of the night, in october?”  
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.  
The both of them shared a look and then burst into laughter, that he could barely get through. Best to just let it go. He had picked them up near a park in a quiet neighbourhood he had never been to before and now he stayed silent until he was back in traffic. His throat hurt anyways. “Alright, Midland. Where do you need me to drop you off? Bob?”  
Nothing. He risked another look in the mirror and regretted it instantly.  
In the backseat, Midland had caught Bob's face between his hands and was pressing little prude kisses on his lips. They were gazing at each other with so much intimacy, that Teller nearly crashed into the car in front of him. Luckily, neither of the two seemed to notice the squealing tires. Bob said something that was far too soft to hear from the driver's seat, but it made Midland chuckle, genuinely chuckle and avert his eyes. He’d never really understood how he did that, but sometimes Bob just had that effect on people, even now when his make up was all over the place. He’d never seen him that deranged, actually. It looked like he had half-heartedly tried to fix it after having a good cry. The idea of Midland making Bob cry had a certain inherent comedy to it. … Simon sighed and rubbed his face. Fine. For now he could just take them home- he already knew he would regret that decision when he made it, he just really needed to be somewhere warm, and he was starving…

By the time they arrived back, those two were talking in a much more casual way, still too quiet for him to hear, but with serious faces. Midland was playing with the buttons on Bob's jacket and wistfully gazed into the middle distance.  
When they got out of the car, their good spirits seemed to return though. They were chattering away again, and it was almost insufferable. Preferable to the two of them getting lost in the city, drunk and alone, but only barely.  
“Did you know, Bob won a local fishing contest when he was twelve? Can you imagine him as a country boy?” Teller shared a little grin with Bob and didn’t reply. He unlocked the door, and neither of them seemed concerned about not being home. Except when he stepped over the threshold next to him, Midland suddenly grabbed his arm and got really close to his face. “We need to talk.”  
Oh, this was just too much, he didn’t sign up for this. Midland smelled like a whole brewery, but his eyes were pinned on only him, deep enough to fall into if he slipped up, and looking away didn’t make it any better. For a moment, Midland was the whole world, their bodies were touching, his lips looked so soft and his cheeks were flushed from the cold. There were some stray locks of hair in his face that Simon wanted to touch more than he wanted to breathe. “Ab- mh. About… about what?”  
There was a pause. “I don’t know”, Midland finally said, slowly and without breaking eye contact. “But when I do, you’re on.”  
“Wha-” Simon watched, as Midland followed Bob up the stairs. Neither of them knew what floor he lived on.

They made it into the apartment. Not that there was a whole lot to see. It was roomy - for New York standards, which meant it was also a shithole - and mostly empty. It never bothered him, because he was barely there, and definitely never had guests. He hadn’t planned on having guests. He absolutely hadn’t planned for whatever the hell this was. Midland took off his coat and gave Bob another little kiss. When he noticed Teller's look he said: “He tastes like strawberries. I thought he was joking, but he really does.”  
“Yeah, he does”, Simon mumbled absently and then froze, but Midlands attention had moved on and he didn’t seem to have heard. God… idiotic.  
“So, I’m thinking the both of you should probably go to bed..” God, someone needed to slap him for his own good.  
At least after the cold air outside, his apartment seemed comfortably warm.  
Neither of the two seemed to have heard his comment about going to bed. They had disappeared so suddenly that he had to look for them. Finally he found them in the living room, that was more or less only a near pristine couch and a sideboard. He’d had very good intentions when he moved in… Somehow Bob had gotten his hands on his laptop. “What’s your password boss?”  
“I am not going to tell you my password. You two clearly have a buzz to sleep off.”  
“Your wedding anniversary? That’s kinda dark, don’t you think, boss? Hey Midland, maybe you should take him for a drink next.”  
Midland looked up and their eyes met instantly. It felt like a very deep hole had suddenly opened in the ground, but refused to swallow him. “Been trying to do that for a while, actually”, he said, and for a moment he sounded almost sober. Teller closed the door between them and then stared at it for a moment. He should have definitely never brought them here, this was madness. Music started blaring from inside the room, but he really didn’t have the energy to go in there and tell them to turn it off, even though his head was still killing him. The neighbours would just eat that up… ah, what the hell, he never saw them anyways.  
If he had been nauseated before, he felt genuinely sick now. Teller walked into the kitchen and saw his abandoned oatmeal on the stove, It had turned into a cold, lumpy sludge. That seemed about right. With a tortured sigh he dumped it into his bowl, took his spoon from the near empty kitchen drawer and left the apartment. He had still been dressed anyways.

The cold outside made his chest hurt, but it still felt good somehow. At least it was quiet. It almost felt like he had been holding his breath ever since he picked those two idiots up. He’d never seen them like that, it seemed out of character for Midland to let it get to that point. Made him wonder if something happened.  
At least they had called him.  
Lost in thoughts, Teller began spooning up his cold sludge. It was alright, he didn’t taste anything anyways.  
He stared into the near empty street and realised - he didn’t actually know what time it was. But the sky was as dark as it ever got, and the only traffic he heard was mute and distant for the moment. They had called him. Because Midland… wanted to hear his voice? The thought made him lower his bowl slowly. He had been drunk, who knew what the hell that meant. But he knew how it made him feel, and that was something he would have to address eventually. Just… maybe not now.  
But they were up there right now, his private life and his work life had finally mixed. He always assumed if that happened, it would be because of Bob. But as close as they were - closer than he had ever been to anyone, if he was being completely honest - they had always somehow managed to keep it professional. It wasn’t that hard. Work was most of their lives anyways, and the rest wasn’t really worth sharing.  
… but then, clearly he had shared with Midland. Fishing competition… How many of those little anecdotes were there that he didn’t know about? Half a life’s worth, probably. It had never bothered him before. As little as he knew about Bob, it was still more than anyone else did. They’d just had a silent understanding, like he’d never had before. Bob just… got him.  
And clearly he got Midland, too. That shouldn't’t bother him. They worked together just as closely and if nothing else… it was understandable. He wanted Midland to like him so badly that it was almost a physical craving. There was just something precious about him. Something… good.  
But that wasn’t what bothered him, was it? Not really. If Bob got this chummy with Midland this fast, he didn’t need him, not the way he used to. It was an ugly thought, but one Simon couldn’t exactly begrudge himself for. They were both very charming people, pleasant people. He barely passed as entertaining on good days. And for a few years that hadn’t bothered him. Because it hadn’t bothered Bob. And so he’d had no reason to think about how that man was all he had.Something about Bob had made it very easy not to think about the future.  
His spoon was scraping the bottom of his bowl and he was frozen through and through. He didn’t remember eating all that porridge, but the stale taste in his mouth said otherwise. Wow. This was not his proudest moment. For a long time, Teller stared at the building, trying to find the little light that was his living room window.  
Suddenly, he wasn’t so cold anymore. It didn’t matter, he decided. Whatever was going to happen. Whatever was going on with him. Because at the end of the day, they’d come to him, they’d wanted to see him. Maybe this time, change wouldn’t be so bad. And maybe… maybe he would even go get that drink, if Midland still remembered offering it in the morning. If not, at least he could tease him about it...  
He came back inside, and this time he really noticed how stuffy and overheated the place was. The music seemed to have died down already, how long had he been out there? He dropped off his coat and the dishes and then cautiously opened the door to the living room. The ceiling light was still on, but nothing was moving. His coworkers were curled up on the couch, Midland had more or less collapsed against the backrest in a position that would probably ruin his back for days, Bob's face was buried against his chest. They were entangled so delicately, that it felt dangerous to look at them for too long. Oh, for god’s sake.  
Didn’t really feel like he had a choice now. Teller turned off the lights, grabbed the blanket he’d left on the kitchen chair and returned to spread it over the two of them as carefully as he could manage, making really sure not to cough just then. The last thing he needed was for them to wake up in the middle of this. It took him a few tries, the blanket kept sliding off because he didn’t dare properly tugging them in, but finally he let go, took a few steps back and evaluated his work with crossed arms. That would have to do.  
When he turned to leave, the smallest voice made him jump. “Where the fuck are you going, this time of night?”  
Midland had barely moved, but his eyes were open now, directed right at him. Seeing him this calm was terrifying… or at the very least it made him feel something that he wasn’t going to inspect any closer. He couldn’t afford getting like this over every pretty guy he worked with, what did that say about him? It was madness! And worse, it was pathetic.  
“Going to bed…?” It sounded more like a question, as much as he tried to regain some authority. It didn’t help that his voice was thick and crumbling.  
“Are you saying you have more than this blanket? Place looks like you’ve been evicted already…”  
Right. That. He really hadn’t thought this through. Midland moved vaguely, as though he was going to sit up more, but eventually just wrapped his arms tighter around Bob to keep him from slipping. He looked half asleep. “Get in here, boss.”  
“Midland, I don’t-”  
“Get in here.”  
Maybe he should have waited for this exact chance to run off. What was Midland going to do, chase him down?  
“I’m just going to wake him, if I…”  
“Get in here, or I give him a good shake.”  
Huh. “Why would you do that?”  
Apparently his sleepiness was starting to take over again, because Midland’s head dropped against the backrest of the couch. “‘s my turn to be nuts tonight, what’re you gonna do about it? Are we gonna arm wrestle?”  
So Midland really wasn’t going to make any sense tonight anymore, very well. Hesitantly, Simon came back to the couch and very gingerly joined Midland on it. It took quite a bit of rustling around to get him situated, and in the end Midlands back was pressed against his chest, and he could barely breathe for a whole variety of reasons. For Midland it had apparently been easy, he seemed to have dozed off near immediately.  
And it felt good. It felt really, really good. He hated everything about this. A shock of soft curls was pressed against his cheek. He wasn’t sure how long he had been lying there, frozen and stiff as a statue, but eventually he couldn’t resist anymore. He ran a hand through it, brushing it away from his face, and then immediately flinched away from it, when Midland moved against him. But then he spoke. “‘sfine, Boss. … it’s nice.”  
It felt like he was the one who had been drinking all day, and he hadn’t even taken any cold medicine yet. Feeling very brave, he buried his hand in Midlands hair again and held his breath, as though he was waiting for protest. There wasn’t any. Only the soft sound of Midland and Bob breathing, the warmth and weight of their bodies against him. He had been right. Chances were, this wouldn’t be that bad at all.


End file.
